RenderWare

RenderWare is a game engine developed by the British game developer Criterion Software.

Overview

RenderWare is a 3D API and graphics rendering engine used in video games, Active Worlds, and some VRML browsers. RW was developed by Criterion Software Limited (which used to be a wholly owned subsidiary of Canon but is now owned by Electronic Arts). It originated in the era of software rendering on PCs prior to the appearance of GPUs, competing with other libraries such as Argonaut's BRender and RenderMorphics' Reality Lab (the latter was acquired by Microsoft and became Direct3D).

RenderWare's principal commercial importance was in providing an off-the-shelf solution to the difficulties of PS2 graphics programming. It was almost describable as "Sony's DirectX" during this era—although the name refers to surrounding framework and toolchain middleware. Prior to version 2, an external programming or scripting language was required to take advantage of RenderWare. RenderWare 2, on the other hand, has its own internal scripting language: RWX (RenderWare script). However, in RenderWare 3 RWX support was removed. This next iteration focused on a binary model file format. As with the previous version increment, Criterion removed support for RW3's formats in RenderWare 4.